Ruth Lexton

Watching, January 2021 The new year slouches forward, unlovable, barely acknowledged but for tired, gritty eyes and a muffled scream into the kitchen towel. Pale moonlight streams through the blinds, watching the night in shiftless wakeful patterns, patience hardening...

Claire Booker

Dehydration Never has there been so much interest in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth like the little man in a weather clock. The consultant’s quick look predicts storms in its fur. She keeps pouring water into my glass as fast as I can gulp it down –...

David Waters

      My Mother’s Hands When I was a child my mother’s hands were unremarkable. She never got her nails done or anything crazy like that. We’re talking the 50’s here, in a small Canadian town, a modest religious woman who would...

Fran Hawthorne 

      GOLD MEDAL It was only my second speech and debate tournament in high school, and I was coming home with a gold medal in Dramatic Interpretation and a silver in Extemp. Finally, the frizzy-haired nerd who never got asked to dance was a star. My...

Jacob Mckibbin

      weeks after being stabbed my brother saw his attacker at a petrol station my brother was alone & did not get out of the car even in the ambulance my brother said he wasn’t scared even when the white bathtowel we pressed against the stab wound...